Crisis is a word that's been attached to the UN for years.
But these days, as the UN prepares to celebrate its 80th birthday, it’s more often prefaced with "existential".
Dramatic funding cuts, diplomatic deadlock, the seemingly unstoppable proliferation of global conflict and now famine are contributing to record low levels of confidence that the UN can actually do the job it was set up to do.
"We are gathering in turbulent, even unchartered waters," the UN chief António Guterres told reporters ahead of the annual meeting of world leaders at the UN General Assembly this coming week.
The newly-elected president of the General Assembly, former foreign minister of Germany, Anna Baerbock, called it a "crossroads" and a "make or break moment" for the United Nations.
Such is the doom and gloom hanging over its Manhattan midtown headquarters that the question of whether the UN’s 80th General Assembly session could be its last, is no longer an entirely stupid one.
Even seasoned UN watchers will give a considered answer.
"I think we will be sitting here in a year’s time," said Richard Gowan of the Crisis Group, a New York-based NGO, adding "whether the UN will be is another matter".
Although the UN is going through an extraordinarily difficult period and will be forced to shrink and change a lot, he went on to say, the organisation will probably continue to "muddle through just as it muddled through previous crises, not least during the Cold War".
For now, around 150 heads of states and governments are on their way to New York for the usual frenzied line-up of cocktail parties, speeches and side events amid gridlocked traffic and angry New York commuters.
Here are some of the main things to watch out for.
The Trump Effect
UN officials spent much of last year, leading up the US Presidential Election, vacillating between terror and quiet resignation.
Everybody anticipated a second Trump presidency would not be the best news for the United Nations - an organisation Mr Trump once described as "just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time".
But few expected the cuts would run so deep.
After taking office, President Trump abruptly withdrew the US from key UN agencies, including the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the Human Rights Council.
He commissioned a review of all US spending on the UN as his then "first buddy" Elon Musk fed the US Agency for International Development (USAID) into "the woodchipper".
The many UN agencies that depended, either directly or indirectly, on US donations for their global health and humanitarian programmes are still reeling.
The United States, which foots the bill for nearly a quarter of the UN’s annual budget, has not paid its dues this year. Nor has it paid its arrears for 2024.
And it’s not just the them.
China, the second largest donor to the organisation, has not paid up for 2025 and neither has Russia.
European countries, who were once among the most generous with donations for global humanitarian programmes are clawing back spending too - diverting cash to defence instead.
The UN Secretary General António Guterres declared a "UN80 initiative" in which the organisation needed to do "less with less".
That means hundreds of millions in spending cuts, thousands of job losses and staff re-locations away from expensive cities like Geneva and New York to "cheaper duty stations," like Nairobi, Kenya.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump will make his first address to the United Nations since his return to office and those executive orders that largely sparked this latest UN crisis.
Hints on whether the funding cuts are a prelude to a more comprehensive withdrawal from the UN by its biggest donor is something observers will be listening out for when Mr Trump takes to the podium.
We can expect no shortage of criticism from Mr Trump who sees the UN as an entity with "great potential," that it is not, in his view, living up to.
He also considers much of the UN’s work on issues like gender equality, migration and climate "woke," and at odds with the administration’s "America First" agenda.
Of course, the president of the United States, as the UN’s host country, takes the stage directly after Brazil. (Tradition dictates Brazil is always first at the rostrum).
This year, that means regional arch rivals - Donald Trump of the United States and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil - could cross paths at the UN.
Mr Trump, piqued over the criminal trial of his ally, the former Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro - known as the Trump of the Tropics - and the current government’s regulation of US tech, threatened 50% tariffs on Brazil.
Last week, the Brazilian president told the BBC he would greet Mr Trump with courtesy if he ran into him in New York.
But, he said, Mr Trump was "President of the United States, not emperor of the world".
Despite his antipathy towards the UN in general, President Trump is thought to quite enjoy coming to New York for UNGA.
There will be no shortage of dignitaries vying to snatch a few moments of facetime with the world’s most powerful man.
"He enjoys the attention of other leaders," Mr Gowan said, "and my suspicion is that he is going to be using his appearance to boast about his many achievements and perhaps once again, make the case that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize."
"He may well repeat a line from one recent executive order, which is that the president has ended more wars in eight months than the UN has in 80 years - this is mathematically incorrect, but it is a good talking point," he said.
Mass recognition of Palestine
A conference on the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine - the one co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France - will re-convene on Monday and it’s there that we can expect a flurry of pledges to recognise Palestinian statehood.
Already more than 140 UN member states recognise Palestine. But this will be the first time powerful G7 countries - France, Canada and the UK - will do so, along with Australia, Belgium and Luxembourg.
That will mean that four of the five permanent members of the UN’s Security Council - China, Russia, UK and France - will recognise Palestine, leaving only one that does not: the United States.
This represents a major policy shift by some of the US and Israel’s closest allies.
For their part, the US and Israel remain firmly opposed to recognition, calling it a reward for terror.
Meanwhile, in Israeli settlement expansion continues on land deemed by most of the world to be Palestinian.
Last week, on a visit to the Occupied West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told settlers there would never be a Palestinian state.
"This place is ours," he said.
And at the end of last month, the US State Department announced it would block the visas of the Palestinian officials due to travel to New York, citing national security.
Before the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) can be considered partners for peace, they must "consistently repudiate terrorism - including the October 7 massacre - and end incitement to terrorism in education, as required by US law and as promised by the PLO," the statement read.
Under the UN headquarters agreement, dating back to 1947, the US is obliged to issue visas to officials entering on UN business.
For a time, diplomats toyed with the idea of moving the General Assembly this year to another location - like Geneva. That happened once before when then PLO chairman Yasser Arafat was denied entry in 1988.
It was decided in a vote on Friday that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas would deliver a pre-recorded address via video link. The United States, Israel and three other countries voted against.
The whole issue caused alarm among UN officials, especially as rumours swirled that delegations from other states currently out of favour with Washington - like Brazil for example - were also facing visa hurdles.
"We're obviously concerned," said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary General.
"UN headquarters is an integral part of the city of New York but for it to work, we need to have the headquarters agreement fully implemented," he said.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to New York.
He’s slated to address the General Assembly on Friday where he may well denounce the UN.
Last year, he called it "a swamp of antisemitic bile".
War and famine
There is more armed conflict in the world today than any time since 1945, according to the UN.
And at this high-level week, much like last year, three ongoing wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan remain on the agenda, although with little hope for any breakthrough.
The Security Council remains deadlocked - with the United States blocking action on Gaza and Russia on Ukraine.
The year’s meeting comes just days after a UN-backed Commission of Inquiry released its findings that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, which Israel rejected.
That, coupled with the recent declaration of famine in Gaza by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), will be at the forefront of delegates’ minds as they gather here.
But last Thursday, the United States vetoed another Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire, humanitarian access and release of Israeli hostages, saying the text failed "to condemn Hamas or recognise Israel’s right to defend itself".
In Ukraine, despite a summer of intense diplomacy, fostered largely by US President Donald Trump, the fighting grinds on, with recent Russian violations of NATO airspace heightening fears of the conflict spilling over.
European leaders will no doubt clamour to grab a moment with Mr Trump, as they attempt to shore up Washington’s commitment to Ukraine’s - and Europe’s - security.
But the US President may be distracted by machinations among traditional US allies beyond Europe.
Last week, Saudi Arabia signed a strategic mutual defence deal with nuclear-armed Pakistan, under which any aggression against one would be considered aggression against the other. In other words, Pakistan and Saudi have entered a NATO-style arrangement.
For decades, the United States guaranteed Saudi’s security.
But Israel’s recent bombing of Qatar, has made Gulf States nervous, analysts said.
Velina Tchakarova, a Vienna-based security analyst, called the Saudi-Pakistan deal a "geopolitical thunderclap".
Saudi Arabia is signalling to the US and Israel that it is "diversifying security alliance," she wrote on X, adding "Beijing gains further leverage through two of its closest partners, now bound together".
"The Middle East and South Asia are entering a new geopolitical reality," she wrote.
All this plays into a sense of a shifting world order.
The conflict raging in Sudan, where famine has also been officially declared in what is deemed by the UN to be the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, will be the subject of a ministerial discussion.
A UN report released on Friday found a "significant rise in civilian killings, including summary executions, amid growing ethnic violence and a worsening humanitarian situation".
But activists are concerned that Sudan may get less attention from world leaders this year, despite the brutality of the war.
Reform and Succession
As the United Nations turns 80, it’s showing its age.
A multilateral organisation, set up in the ashes of World War II, is still effectively run by the victors of that conflict. That’s why France, UK, China, Russia and the United States maintain permanent seats - and veto power - on the UN Security Council.
But many delegates wonder: what about the vast and heavily populated continent of Africa, for example? How about India? Or Brazil?
These are questions that have plagued the United Nations for years, but meaningful reform has never really got off the ground.
At last year’s UNGA, member states showed their commitment to build a better UN with the Pact of the Future - a landmark document covering everything from Security Council reform to nuclear disarmament to artificial intelligence.
But the initial enthusiasm has since been dampened by harsh realities.
"It is now a pact of a bygone era," said Mr Gowan, "the pact of the past".
It was a document where everyone was able to have what they wanted and there was no real discussion of the budgetary implications or prioritisation amongst the hundreds of commitments that it included, he said.
"There is a very general feeling, both inside the organisation and amongst diplomats that the pact was a product of a different moment," he said.
One thing that will move ahead this year is the selection of a new UN Secretary General.
António Guterres’ will complete his second and last term on 31 December 2026.
For years, conventional wisdom had it that a woman should be next in line.
After 80 years, it was high time, many argued.
But now some diplomats believe that the United States - a permanent member of the Security Council with a lot of influence on the decision - will plump for a man, in keeping with the administration’s commitment to axing anything that could be seen as a DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) initiative.
Is Mr Guterres, who has been an advocate for gender parity inside the organisation, working behind the scenes to ensure there will be a Madam Secretary General?
"I think the involvement of a sitting Secretary General in the choice of his successor would not always ensure the outcome that the sitting Secretary General would like to see," his spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told RTÉ News.
